Persistent digital identity; a rose by any other name

Right now, Techmeme looks like Scoblememe, with the whole page above the fold devoted to Robert Scoble debating what is and what isn't a blog.  Amongst the issues raised are whether private blogs are really blogs (Jeff Sandquist handily collates the more vocal proponents from the "yes" camp here). 

So here's the thing. It doesn't matter whether Microsoft spaces are technically blogs or not. Start calling them homepages again for all the difference it makes. The blog format suits a lot of people, if there are indeed 50 million blogs out there, but the constraints of the format fail more people than they satisfy - Forrester's recent social computing snapshot (sub req'd) showed that while 5% of the UK online population have created a blog and kept it updated, 6% have created a blog and abandoned it. Something about blogging just didn't cut it for the majority of people who tried it out.

What matters is not whether these spaces fulfil the arbitrary definition of a blog, but that some number of people have found a reason to create a persistent digital identity. This is the old "your audience is not your enemy" argument all over again, and whether they're calling themselves bloggers  or not what we're really talking about is people. They've decided they need something - a blog, a homepage, a space - to call their own online. In providing the space for them to carve out that persistent digital identity, blog format or no blog format, Microsoft proves they get it.

Comments

[ygzerza]

Queen is there was always wwe jeff hardy given pete was good. I'll try to see.